Patterns
by samvimes
Summary: Vimes faces up to some interesting truths about the Watch.


This wasn't a story I had ever considered doing, though I suppose with   
my propensity for seizing on little quotes to expand upon, it would   
have done for me sooner or later. I blame this on StripeDog13, who   
suggested it, beta-read it, and encouraged me shamelessly. Many   
thanks, Stripe :)  
  
It was an interesting story for me to write, truth be told, probably   
because I know from experience that the quote is true: you never notice   
how fascinating asphalt is until you're lying on it after being hit by   
a car. Or how obsessed you are with your camera until you're more   
worried about its post-collision functionality than your own. ::grin::   
After all, gentle readers, bones heal -- cameras and cigar-cases don't.   
  
If people are interested, I may continue the story for a few more   
'episodes', but this can also stand as a one-off. The only way to let   
me know is, of course, by review :)  
  
Patterns  
  
He remembered once when he'd been stabbed and would have bled to death  
if Sergeant Angua hadn't caught up with him and how, as he lay there,   
he'd found himself taking a very intense interest in the pattern of   
the carpet. The senses say: we've only got a few minutes, let's record  
everything, in every detail...  
--The Night Watch  
Kruso Sledge wasn't like other murderers.   
  
Most other murderers, anyway.  
  
The vast majority of people who kill, if you exclude Assassins, fall   
into one of two categories: People who kill family, and people who kill   
by accident. Sad but true.   
  
Vimes had dealt with the first kind. He knew that a person could only   
take so many beatings before they lashed back, and when they did, it   
was with the desperate anger of those who know that if they don't win   
they will die. Usually, they've been afraid for so long that they don't   
realize how strong they are. Usually it was a woman with a frying pan   
or a son or daughter with a crossbow who'd said enough is enough.  
  
He almost always had to struggle to feel anything but sympathy for   
them. He still made an arrest and he still brought them up before the   
Patrician for sentencing, but it was tough. It made you tough, too.   
Every copper who'd walked a beat knew that.  
  
He dealt more rarely with the second kind, because usually the person   
surrendered quietly enough, or botched the cover-up badly. Those were   
touchy, too, but neither one was as bad as Sledge's sort.  
  
Kruso Sledge killed for fun and profit, but mostly for fun. Profit was   
an added bonus that allowed him to kill for a living, instead of for a   
hobby. Up until now, anyhow. Sledge only made one mistake, really. He   
killed a copper.  
  
That made his very existence a personal insult to Sam Vimes, and he   
acted accordingly. Every resource the Watch could spare went into   
finding Sledge, and the Watch, these days, had quite considerable   
resources. They'd already been tracking him. Now they were tracking,   
tagging, and harassing him.   
  
Vimes lurked in an alleyway outside of the Blue Rat Tavern, one of   
Ankh-Morpork's less prestigious drinking establishments. He'd never   
favored it, himself; too far off the path between the old Treacle Mine   
Road Watch House and his lodgings. But Sledge did, according to a   
couple of narkers that Angua had tracked down. Angua took the case   
personally; he wasn't sure why. Perhaps the same reason he did. At any   
rate, she'd asked to lead the manhunt, which was why she was on the   
other side of the street, also watching.  
  
Both of them would have stood out like sore thumbs in the Blue Rat,   
Vimes because he didn't drink and Angua because, well, she had the sort   
of figure that stood out anywhere. So they were waiting for Sledge to   
go in, or come out, or be flushed out by Andre, the head of the   
undercover division, and two of his fellows.   
  
Carrot was down at the corner, Ping was watching the back door, and   
Swires was on the wing. If they got him at all, they'd get him tonight.   
Chasing people was all very well, but it got tiresome after a while.   
Over the years, the Watch had learned to wait, to set traps.   
  
Vimes saw a light go on in one of the front rooms above the tavern,   
that the owner sometimes rented out. Maybe -- better than maybe -- this   
was where Sledge was living.  
  
He saw the light.  
  
He saw the curtains.  
  
He saw the crossbow.  
  
He saw Sledge lean out of the windowsill, and aim it at Angua, who   
was looking up -- she smelled him, bigods -- but she couldn't see him  
from that angle. She couldn't see him, but he could shoot her...  
  
He ran.  
  
A normal bolt couldn't kill Angua and it wasn't likely that Sledge had   
a silver-tipped quarrel; he wasn't the type to think that far ahead.   
Sledge was an improviser. So, although every urge in his body was to   
run to the aid of a fellow officer, instead he burst into the Blue Rat   
and, before anyone could object or even throw a bottle, he darted   
through the back room and up the stairs. Andre, halfway through buying   
a pint at the bar, paused in mid-purchase.   
  
Chairs scraped. Several large, burly men stood up.   
  
"Wot the 'ell was that?" the barman asked.  
  
"Was what?" Andre inquired politely. He gave the large men a charming   
smile, and bolted after his Commander.   
  
He arrived just in time to throw his weight against the door that Vimes   
was charging towards. Alone, neither man was very large, and probably   
couldn't have done it, but the combined weight pushed it inwards about   
a foot.  
  
"Chair under the doorknob," Vimes said. "Get up on the roof, he's got   
no other way out except the window -- "  
  
"There's another -- " Andre warned.  
  
"Get on the roof, Andre! When you get there, yell down to Carrot and   
Ping, he may have hit Angua. I'm going back down."  
  
Andre scowled, but Vimes was his Commander, and he obeyed.   
  
Vimes, who had not survived thirty years in the Watch by being   
impulsive, listened carefully.   
  
He /knew/ there was another floor, he wasn't an idiot. He was hoping   
Sledge was taking advantage of it. And he wasn't about to announce in a   
thin-walled hallway where he was going.   
  
There was a quiet, almost a non-noise. Don't listen to the pulse in   
your ears, don't breathe deeply.  
  
There it was again.   
  
He moved just as silently as the man above him, now attuned enough to   
hear the little sounds even above Andre's shouts. The gutter rattled  
outside. Yes, Andre, good boy, go down the pipe, let him think he's   
safe.   
  
Now what, o great and wise Duke?  
  
He looked up. Sledge was in the hallway up above. You couldn't shoot a   
crossbow through six-inch timbers or even through two-inch floorboards,   
they just weren't powerful enough. Which meant that, while Sledge   
couldn't fire down, Vimes couldn't fire up.   
  
There were men coming up the stairs.   
  
Bugger, bugger, /bugger/.  
  
Well, the hell with it.  
  
He climbed up the second set of stairs, grabbed hold of the last timber   
before the roof opened into the next hallway, and swung upwards. At   
least that way he'd get his knees broken before his skull.  
  
A crossbow bolt whizzed past. Vimes, for whom the world was a dizzying   
selection of hard surfaces to collide with, kicked straight out. All   
right. This way is up.   
  
He rolled to his feet and was running before he was fully upright;   
another crossbow shot went wide. Sledge was standing at the end of the   
hallway, in the doorway of what looked like an unlit store-room. Vimes   
hit him full-on, and was rewarded with a sharp pain in his chest that   
didn't go away when he rolled and untangled his own limbs from   
Sledge's.   
  
Oh bloody hell, he's stabbed me, he thought, with remarkable clarity.   
He reached out for Sledge's ankle as the other man got to his feet,   
clinging for dear life. Sledge kicked and ran.  
  
Vimes pulled himself up, his breathing suddenly labored, the pain   
spreading through his body like fire. His arms wouldn't hold him; he   
fell over again, a few inches closer to the window that Sledge had just   
gone out of. There was shouting in the distance. Very distant, now...  
  
He slumped onto his side, his face inches from a dusty Auriental carpet   
that covered the few square feet of space not filled with old broken   
furniture. Might as well wait here as anywhere; didn't sound like they   
were enjoying themselves too much out in that hallway.   
  
His hands felt like lead. The pain was fading, remarkably fast, and   
Vimes knew what that meant. He tried to look around for the cowl and   
scythe, but all he could see was the carpet.   
  
It wasn't like normal carpets; it was woven, rather than hooked. There   
were little gold threads running through each strand of red yarn that   
went over one, under the next...one little thread snaking through the   
whole of the rug, making up barely a fraction of a part of a pattern.   
But there were patterns in the thread, weren't there? And patterns in   
those patterns.  
  
His head spun. He should get up; he shouldn't panic. Who was panicked?   
How could anyone panic when all they were doing was lying on a rug?  
  
"Sir?"  
  
The yarn was red, shot with gold, but the yarn going the other way was   
a dirty blue color...except where those too were beginning to turn   
red. Why was that?  
  
A thought dominated his mind.  
  
"We get 'im?" he asked. He thought it was quite a clear question, but   
there was no answer. Someone shoved him over onto his back, and he   
moaned in protest.   
  
"Oh, gods -- BUGGY! GET IGOR! NOW!"   
  
Angua. Angua'd been shot too. That must be why there was all this   
blood. "Don't move," she said, and the sound of her kneeling was like a   
roar in his ears.  
  
I'm not moving.   
  
I can /feel/ the carpet pattern under my shoulders.   
  
"Sir -- no, don't close your eyes, don't you close your eyes you old   
bastard -- "  
  
He groaned again. Rudeness to a superior officer. Angua, of all people.   
For shame.  
  
"We get 'im, Angua?" he tried again, thickly.  
  
"Don't talk, sir. The Yard's not very far away, Igor can be here in no   
time at all, just don't talk and /don't close your eyes/!" she snapped,   
when his eyelids began to droop. He tried to lift a hand. His back   
arched stiffly, and something warm ran down his chest. Angua's hands   
held him down, firmly.  
  
"You do that again, sir, and I'll bite you. Don't think I won't," she   
said. "If it comes to it I will see you undead before I see you die,   
so you'd better pray that it doesn't."  
  
I'm not going to /die/, nobody's /dying/ Angua, it doesn't even hurt.   
  
There were thumps somewhere off in the world, but the world didn't seem   
to matter much anymore.   
  
***  
  
He woke to pain. Quite a lot of it, really.   
  
Also, an interesting pattern. White. As far as the eye could see. White   
swirls. How did they do that? On the ceiling, of all places. That can't   
be a comfortable job, putting the swirls in the plaster on the ceiling.   
How do they keep them so even?  
  
What's wrong with me?  
  
He recognized the ceiling; it was his ceiling in his room at the Ya --   
  
Except he didn't live at the Yard. He'd moved out*. Years ago. Young   
Visit had taken his room.   
  
He closed his eyes and tried to think, but thought was tediously   
elusive. What had he been doing? Staring in fascination at a carpet.   
Then Angua had threatened to bite him. Then the world was a big black   
blank.  
  
He turned his head. On the table, the contents of his pockets. Keys, a   
few dollars in change, a book he'd picked up from the Street of Cunning   
Artificers for Carrot. His badge. His cigar case and the well-worn   
presentation pocketwatch that they'd given him for his abortive   
retirement, years ago. His eyes traveled over the last two carefully.   
If either of them were damaged --   
  
But the watch was chiming an hour; it was probably what had woken him.   
The little tune was comforting.  
  
"Good morning, Mithter Vimes."  
  
Vimes lifted his right hand, hesitantly, and held up a finger in the   
vague direction of the voice. "Is that Igor?" he asked. His throat   
seemed lined with something sticky.  
  
"Yes indeed, thur. Don't try to sit up, you'll pull your stitches. I'll   
fetch Lady Thybil, if you'd like."  
  
"Am I still alive?"  
  
"Oh yes, sir."  
  
"Am I going to stay that way?"  
  
"It's a good bet."  
  
"And Angua didn't bite me?"  
  
"No, thur."  
  
"Lots of stitches?"  
  
"Not too many, sir."  
  
"Oh," Vimes said faintly. "In that case, yes. Sybil. Please."  
  
The silence was an almost tangible thing, when Igor left the room. It   
was a wrong silence. This was the Yard; people should be shouting and   
clanking keys and doing all the rest of the things that contributed to  
the normal background buzz of a police station. He wondered if someone   
had died.   
  
Then there was a noise like an explosion downstairs, and he winced.  
Unconsciousness might have been more attractive.  
  
***  
  
It was hard to tell when an Igor was smiling, usually, but this time   
there was no mistaking it. Carrot gave him a relieved smile back, his   
hand convulsively clutching Angua's; Sybil didn't move until Igor'd   
actually said the words.  
  
"He'th fine. Awake and talking."  
  
The cheer was deafening.  
  
There were about forty people the canteen, give or take; off-duty   
Watchmen, a few on-duty who were blatantly disobeying orders, Carrot   
and Angua, Fred and Nobby; Fred's wife and one of his children had come   
by with food, and to sit up with Sybil, who refused to leave. Detritus   
was in the corner with some trainees who'd been at the Yard when they   
brought the Commander back, and who stayed through the night. On Igor's   
orders, no-one had been allowed to talk, and all normal Watch business   
was being routed through other stations, where they were watching the   
clacks nervously for news.   
  
Now, with Igor's words hanging in the air, forty frightened officers   
let out all that sound at once.   
  
Igor waved a quieting hand, and Detritus thumped a wall with his giant   
fist, silencing everyone instantly. Sybil brushed past the doctor and   
up the stairs, while Igor sputtered and lisped his way through an angry   
reprimand to the officers below.   
  
She let herself into the infirmary room, hastily vacated by corporal   
Ping, who was doubled-up with Visit down the hall. Sam looked like   
death warmed over, frozen again, and then kicked around for a while. He   
turned his head to see her; up until he did that, she wasn't sure Igor   
was actually telling the truth.  
  
"Hi, Sybil," he said slowly. "Just a flesh wound. Be up and about in no   
time."  
  
She shook her head. "Flesh wound my foot, Samuel Vimes. You ought to   
see a mirror."  
  
"You didn't worry, did you?"  
  
"Of course not," she said, and then, because she thought she might cry,   
she sat down on a chair near the bed, and composed herself.   
  
"Tell me what happened. Someone told you, I know, and if I know Igor he   
won't tell me anything," said Sam. She waited until she thought she   
could speak.  
  
"That horrible man had a knife," she said. "Angua found you in the   
store-room with..." she bit her lip. "Angua saved your life, you know.   
If she hadn't gotten there in time -- she kept you awake and sent   
someone for Igor, and he had them take you back to the Yard because   
Scoone Avenue was too far, and then they couldn't move you...Igor had   
to do all sorts of things. I don't know what-all. He says you'll be   
fine."  
  
"That's good."  
  
"How do you feel?"  
  
He turned back to look at the ceiling. "Angua's healing up, then? She   
was shot too."  
  
"Yes, but Sam -- "  
  
"Did we catch him?"  
  
Sybil looked down at her hands. More than anything, this was what Igor   
didn't want her to tell him.   
  
"Sort of," she murmured.  
  
"Sort of? You mean we caught a bit of him?" Sam asked. "Or we got close   
to catching him?"  
  
"Well, Carrot brought him back, but he let one of the other lads do the   
booking..."  
  
"He got away," Sam said dully.  
  
"No...but...Igor's almost certain he'll be all right, in a few days."  
  
He turned his head to look at her, so sharply that he winced. "What?"  
  
"You have to understand, nobody knew if you were even going to live   
through the night, and they were scared, Sam. Scared people do stupid   
things."  
  
"Oh gods. What did they do to him?"  
  
"Not enough," Sybil said fiercely. "I don't care if you think I'm a   
terrible person for saying it. They ought to have killed him. Carrot   
and Angua stopped them, or they probably would have."  
  
She saw Sam's face, and stopped, ashamed.  
  
"If it was me last night, and one of mine had been killed, or close   
to as makes no difference...I don't blame them. Or you," he added,   
touching her arm for emphasis. His hands were so pale. "But it would   
have made us no better than him. Worse, because we had him captive."  
  
"That's what Angua said."  
  
"Angua's right."  
  
"She learned it from you."  
  
"I don't know about that. Perhaps. Maybe from Carrot." He rolled,   
grunting with pain, to face her. "It's all down to patterns," he said   
tiredly. "Little patterns inside patterns."  
  
"Are you all right, Sam?"  
  
"Just tired," he mumbled. "You set the pattern, see? Angua's a good   
copper. She follows it. The others'll learn."  
  
"Sam, I don't think..."  
  
"You set the pattern and they follow, if the pattern is right. Good for   
Carrot. Good for Angua."   
  
His voice trailed off, sleepily, and his eyes closed. She touched his   
cheek, hesitantly, and brushed hair away from his face. She'd have to   
find some way to thank Angua. Not that you could, not for something   
like this. But maybe that debt had already been paid.   
  
Her Sam was a good teacher. One of the best. He'd taught Angua a lot   
about coppering. Angua, in turn, had taught dozens of others, over   
time -- like the ones downstairs, who'd stood vigil for their   
Commander.   
  
Like a gold thread, running through the fabric of the Watch. Sooner or   
later, the thread becomes the pattern.   
  
END  
  
* Well, walked out, really. It isn't actually 'moving' if all you've   
got is a bundle of clothes and a razor. 


End file.
